Joshua moments - March 2010

We have such an affectionate little boy!

He's so gentle most of the time, like when he wants us to come and do or see something he'll come and take your hand and say "come", but not in a pushy way at all.

Every morning he comes to our bed to have his bottle and we say family prayers and then, as long as I don't have to leave early for work, we spend some time just playing on the bed or relaxing. And so often Joshua will decide to give us big hugs and kisses completely spontaneously. What he's also started doing in the last couple days is folding his arms over his bottle while we say prayers. I want to try and get a photo, but he really is very cute!

For months now whenever we say prayers he'll fold his arms nicely, and most of the time these days he'll keep them folded the whole prayer, although of course he's looking all around. And then he knows to say "amen" at the end, and normally I get a kiss too. A while ago at church for the closing prayer he even said a very audible "amen" when he decided that the prayer had gone on for long enough!

At the moment I'm using this big bear as a pregnancy pillow while I'm sleeping and one of his latest things is that he wants the "orange bear" to come and lie next to him all the time. And now the bear is getting lots of hugs too! He also likes to "sit on the bears lap", by sitting between its legs. And if he gets a chance he likes to drag it around the house too! We've now started an evening routine on the bed as well where he has his milk a while before bed time, but then afterwards he wants all of us to read our books together. So he most often gets his "George book" (The Smartest Giant in Town by Julia Donaldson) and then he gives us our books and we have some quiet time. Of course most of the time I don't actually get to read much because he wants me to be commenting on his book as well. But the intention is there ;o) We had a major tree cutting exercise done, with special thanks to my dad ;o) And then a horse and cart came around that afternoon and offered to take all the branches away. While they were loading everything on Andrew took Joshua to go and see the horse. He was very interested, but then he tried to touch the horse and it nipped his tummy. He was grazed, but it was more of a shock than anything. But Andrew very wisely made it a good situation by saying that the horse had kissed Joshua's tummy. And now, even weeks later, Joshua still talks about the horse kissing his tummy whenever he sees a picture of one. But thankfully he doesn't seem at all scared of them. He did want to watch it from the safety of the wall immediately after it kissed him though... Joshua's now started being able to tell what sounds animals make. He can do a cow, sheep, horse, cat, dog, donkey etc. But half the time for the horse he'll rather talk about the kiss than say "neigh" ;o) With the school holidays that are on now a lot of the neighbour kids have been playing in the culdesac during the day. I took Joshua outside a few times, and he's bonded a bit with another boy a bit older than him. Unfortunately I don't think they'll be living in our street permanently... He just loves being outdoors anywhere he can. Here's him playing in my parents back garden. And playing peek-a-boo in the hammock... And our helpful little boy has decided he loves washing dishes. I can just about actually wash dishes properly now, with him playing in the rinsing basin while I wash. But here he is doing his own washing, and of course getting really wet! It's within the last month that Joshua has developed his love for cars. And here is the beginning of him driving them on roads. And then driving them out in the sand outside... (There really is supposed to be grass there, but so far we're very unlucky with our back lawn) Do you remember also loving the feeling of sand between your toes? And driving the cars on our bed first thing in the morning... Any time he can get his hands on them! I found this very interesting... I found his little table like this one day. Andrew had been drawing pictures for him, and using the yellow and orange crayons. Then the puzzle ended up next to it, and when I came in he'd taken out all the pieces which were yellow, orange and brown and put them on the page, and he'd left all the other pieces in the puzzle (the shipwreck in the corner is painted on, not a removeable piece). I don't know if it was pure chance, but he definitely seemed to have matched the colours really well! And then Joshua has been going for swimming lessons for the last few months, and he had his last one for the season the other day. Here is how he's swimming now. I must just mention that this was the first time Lindsay had taken him up to the high wall to jump in. He's been jumping in from the side for this whole season, but she decided to try the high wall, and he did really well!



His talking is of course really coming on now. He even said a 5 or 6 word sentence a couple days ago! And he's able to use quite abstract concepts as well, like at the moment he'll talk about bedtime, milk time, teeth time, juice time, all these different times, and sometimes he'll use a combination that we don't say, so he hasn't heard it from us.

And he does the cutest thing... At the moment everything must be "big". But when he says "big" he gets this big, gruff tone to his voice, and then if he says "small" he'll whisper, and also king of pulls his body in. So the typical place is when we're drawing for him and we have to do big stars and small stars etc. So cute!

Our little boy is definitely growing up!